The Negotiator: A Novel of Suspense

by Brendan DuBois

  Things were getting downright interesting.

  When they had reached about the same distance I was, I resumed walking as well, until I got to the middle of the field. A faded white chalk line extended before me, and the trio approaching me stopped about five yards away.

  I nodded. “There’s three of you. I don’t remember agreeing to more than just you and Carla.”

  George smiled, his face ruddy and looking to be freshly washed and shaved. “Then I guess you should have mentioned something, moron. Some negotiator you turned out to be.”

  He had on a blue L.L.Bean jacket, zippered open, and a black turtleneck shirt along with black dungarees. Muscular Friend had on a dark green commando-type ribbed sweater, with patches on the elbows and shoulders, and black dungarees as well. His eyes were small and focused right on me.

  Carla … she had on black slacks and a brown leather jacket, and her face was puffy, red eyes swollen from tears.

  “I guess I should have,” I said. “Carla, how are you?”

  Her voice was faint. “I’ve had better life moments.”

  “I’m sure. Hey, George, what’s the name of your big friend in the middle?”

  “Him? Oh, he’s called Mister None-Of-Your-Fucking-Business.”

  “Has a nice ring to it.” I caught the man’s attention. “Hey, Mister None, has George told you about the challenges of working for him?”

  He didn’t say a word. I added, “Did George tell you that the last guy who was his best buddy and hired gun ended up dead in a ditch?”

  George’s face reddened even more. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “I guess he didn’t,” I said. “So I don’t know how much he’s paying you, if you’ve got dental insurance or a pension plan, but being in his employ is the true definition of a dead-end job.”

  Muscular Friend didn’t waver, hesitate, or even blink. It made me think that perhaps he didn’t even speak English, that perhaps he was from away and could only communicate via Serbo-Croation.

  “Shut the fuck up, will you?” George said.

  “If I did that, how will we ever conclude a successful negotiation?”

  In another time and place, perhaps MF and Carla would have laughed or smiled, but no, their expressions didn’t change. And neither did George’s. He just said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  “All right,” I said, “but I need to clear up a couple of things first. You know the successful outcome of negotiations relies on frank and open communications. So tell me this, George, you’re offering Carla to me in exchange for the property in Clarence’s possession. But I have a suspicion that you and Carla are working together. What do you have to say about that?”

  “Fuck you, Charlie,” he said. “This stupid bitch phoned me up at Putney, telling the innkeeper that she was from the FBI and wanted to talk to a guy with white hair. I met her on the porch, she threatened to do all sorts of nasty things to me unless I gave up my employer … ” He burst out with a laugh. “Like fuck that was going to happen. So I pretended to be scared and later that night, we scooped her up.”

  “Her room looked very tidy, indeed,” I said. “No sign of a struggle.”

  George smirked. “You see my buddy there? He can be very persuasive in convincing folks to leave quietly and smoothly.”

  That was a thought. Carla said, “Please … ”

  “Got that?” George said. “Is that convincing enough?”

  “Please … ” she murmured. “Just so you know, Henry Ford … he was an asshole. Just so you know.”

  Henry Ford. Not the Jew-hating one. His son.

  Got it.

  “Question answered,” I said. “Time to show the goods. I’m right-handed. So I’m going to slowly lower my left hand to my coat pocket, and come out with what you’re looking for. And you don’t have to say a word, I know in advance that if my hand moves too quickly, or comes out with a weapon, you’ll shoot me dead. Followed by Carla.”

  George nodded. Carla’s eyes were open. But the third member of the party across from me, he stood as still and lifeless as the former governor of California.

  I lowered my left hand, feeling awkward in doing so, into my coat pocket, felt metal there, and slowly lifted it up. It came out of my pocket, out into the open, where the warm Vermont sun warmed it up.

  A set of keys attached to a Red Sox plastic logo.

  Something that might have been a smile slithered across George’s face, and with the fingers of my left hand, I worked around the keys until I located the one I was looking for.

  “Safety deposit box key, am I right?” I asked. “Clarence probably set this up when he was on some freelance job. Maybe he found a case full of hundred-dollar bills, or jewelry, or bars of platinum, and decided to make his move. So he stole the goods, went back home to Massachusetts, placed it in safekeeping, and then tried to cover up his trail.”

  George said, “Give me the key.”

  “It had to be somebody connected to the mob, maybe in the Philly area. The FBI has said the Isabelle Stewart Gardner museum paintings ended up with the mob in Philly. I bet you sought professional courtesy and asked if you could borrow one of the paintings, for bait, to get me and Clarence in one place. And I bet you knew that Clarence never, ever left this key out of his possession.”

  “The key,” George said.

  I dangled the keys so they jingle-jangled. “But you screwed up, George. Didn’t you. You thought you’d kill Clarence, then me, and then scoop up the keys.” I made a buzz noise, like getting a question wrong on a television game show. “Sorry, wrong answer. I got out and kept the keys. So here we are.”

  George’s face looked like it was sliding from scarlet to heart-attack red. “Give me the key, or that bitch’s head is going to be splattered all over this grass, and you’ll be next.”

  “I moved pretty fast last time, George. You think you can beat me again?”

  “I don’t have to. There’s two of us, and one of you. And my friend here … he’s fast, deadly, and as you can tell by his standing there, he’s never been beat. The keys. Now.”

  Just then, my damn stomach decided to remind me that it hadn’t been fed in a while. I learned a while ago that filling up with food before a questionable task was not a good idea, leaving open the threat of infection if bullets go a tumblin’ through your stomach and intestine while they’re busy digesting a breakfast burrito.

  And what do you know, George smirked. “What, your belly growling? You feeling nervous?”

  “Not nervous at all,” I said. “You made an offer. Here’s my counteroffer. You left Clarence a widow with two young boys. How about you agree to take the key, let Carla go, and also give her ten percent of whatever’s in the box as a sign of good will. What do you think?”

  He laughed. “Do I fucking look like I’m overflowing with good will?”

  “Well, I gave it a shot. Can’t blame me for that.”

  “I’ll tell you what I will blame you for, though, is if that key isn’t here with me in the next five seconds, I’m going to kill this FBI bitch.”

  “You want to have the whole FBI chasing your butt when this is done?”

  “She’s some sort of office clerk, not an agent. They’ll get over it. Last time, now, the key.”

  From the slight way MF was moving, I knew he was prepping for a shot, and I said, “All right, George, thanks for your patience. Here they come.”

  And I tossed the bunch of keys right at his head.

  Damn.

  George had been right.

  MF was quick, whipping Carla to the side to open himself for a clear shot at me, and that took less than a second. George was quick, too, for a man of his age, batting away the keys and going into a crouch, pulling out a small semiautomatic pistol from his waist that was also pointed at me.

  My chest grew cold, instinctively
knowing that bullets were moments away from tearing through and ripping it to shreds.

  I dared not move, nor breathe.

  George got up from his crouch, lowered his weapon. MF took that as a sign, and resumed his position, hugging Carla with one arm, holding his revolver back up against her right temple.

  “That was stupid,” George said.

  “My hand slipped. Sorry.”

  George picked up the key chain, the Red Sox plastic piece still dangling. He examined the keys and spotted the one for the safety deposit box.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Pretty much,” George said.

  “Then let Carla come over here, and we’ll all go away happy.”

  George put the keys into his pocket. “No, I think I’ll keep her for a while.”

  “Not part of the negotiation, not part of the deal.”

  “True, but how do I know this key isn’t a fake? I can let Carla go and by the end of the day, a friend of mine will be at a certain bank with a key that doesn’t fit. Where does that leave me? I take Carla and if the key works, then, maybe, I’ll let her go later.”

  “A successful negotiation depends on trust,” I said. “George, please don’t go against your word.”

  He laughed. “Or what? You gonna be mad at me for the rest of your life? What the hell are you going to do now, asshole? I got the key, I got the hostage, I got everything.” George took a couple of steps back away from MF, and I knew exactly what was going to happen next, for he didn’t want to be splattered with my blood and tissue.

  “George, you’re right,” I said. “I surrender.”

  I lifted both of my arms up.

  Nineteen

  There came the sound of a baseball bat striking a pumpkin, and Carla yelped. George looked on, stunned, as his bodyguard fell right on his back, like he was a special marionette whose invisible strings had abruptly and violently been severed.

  “Carla, down!” I yelled, and I went right after George, lowering my body down, attacking him like an NFL tackle pissed that his divorcing wife had just seized his Aruba condo. George raised up his pistol, got off a shot that whizzed right past my left ear, and I barreled right into him, flattening him to the ground, his arm still coming back at me with the pistol, but I knocked his arm free, and when it came back, I twisted and broke his wrist.

  George howled. I loved hearing it. I now had one forearm digging into his throat, and with my right hand, reached down to my right shin, lifted up the pants leg very high, and quickly retrieved my Ka-Bar knife from a scabbard I had taped to my upper shin. The knife came up and with my forearm against his throat, the blade pushing in, George calmed right down.

  “George?”

  “Yeah,” he said, strangling out a whisper up at me.

  “Forgive me, but I want to get your attention.”

  I then slit his cheek.

  He howled some more but then eventually calmed down, even with a broken wrist and bleeding cheek. “You fucker. You set us up. You fucker.”

  “Go complain to the Better Business Bureau,” I said, pressing the now-bloody knife’s edge to his throat. All of my senses were on high alert, like one of those old Air Force radar warning systems seeing a squadron of Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole. I could hear sobs from Carla, heavy breathing from George, and I could smell his scent of sweat and fear, mixed in the smell of spilt blood, drifting in the peaceful Vermont air.

  “Besides,” I continued, “you broke the rules first.”

  “Fucker,” he strangled out once more.

  I pushed in deeper with my forearm and the knife’s edge. He gurgled. “Despite what’s happened in the last minute, George, this is turning out to be a very, very lucky day for you. My original mission in this negotiation was to get you in a position to kill you for killing Clarence.”

  George was wheezing and his face was turning red, almost sliding into light blue. I had to talk quick or lift up my arm before he passed out underneath me.

  “But goals change, George, don’t they. And so did mine. Now you have this opportunity to live. Interested?”

  I released the pressure on my forearm just a bit. He struggled to take in a breath. “Yeah … I’m interested.”

  “Here’s the offer, no negotiations,” I said. “Deal is, you leave Vermont, you leave New England, you never come back. I don’t give a damn what your employers think or respond, but you tell them Clarence ate the key and you lost his body or something else like that. You agree to that, then you’re free to go, with just an ER visit and a trip to the Laundromat to worry about.”

  “How … can I trust … you?”

  “Sounds like a personal problem, George. Do we have a deal?”

  “Why … I got to know … why … ”

  “I mentioned it earlier,” I said. “A widow and two sons. They need to be supported, and they need never to be bothered.”

  “Deal,” George said.

  “Tell me what you understand, before I get up off of you. Sign of a good negotiator, you want to make sure the terms are very precise and clear. Got it?”

  His cheek was bleeding like hell, and his throat was raspy from me having almost strangled him, but George came around.

  “I … never come back to New England … I tell my guy, mission failed … and I don’t bother the widow or sons …”

  “And what about the guys in the surveillance van? Or the shooters in Manchester? Or the kids in Saugus?”

  Spittle was drooling down his chin. “One … time … hires … local talent … that’s all….”

  “Outstanding,” I said, starting to move, “it looks like we’re going to—”

  The sound of the gunshot was so loud and abrupt that I rolled off George’s body, knife held up, looking for a threat, for an enemy, maybe George’s bodyguard had come back to life, looking to see what the hell was going on.

  Carla stood there, slightly weaving, George’s pistol in both her hands. Blood was trickling down the right side of her face. George moaned, brought his hands down to his left side, where a blossom of blood was quickly growing.

  “I wasn’t part of the negotiations,” she said.

  She moved the pistol, shot again in the direction of George’s head.

  Missed.

  “Carla … ”

  George yelped, but before he could say anything, Carla shot again.

  She didn’t miss this time.

  I got up, sheathed my knife in my shin scabbard, and grabbed Carla by her arm. She held up the pistol and said, “Do you want it? I think I’m done with it.”

  I managed to speak. “Sure. I’ll take it off your hands.”

  Carla stood away from the two bodies, legs shaking. Before she turned away from me, she said, “They … hurt me. Both of them.”

  “I see. Wait just a sec, okay?”

  I went over to the body of George’s muscle, whose upper head was pretty much … well, I don’t want to describe it. I took out my handkerchief, wiped the pistol down, put it in the muscle’s hands, forced his trigger finger through, and fired off a shot. Carla didn’t even flinch. I dropped the pistol and found Clarence’s keychain, grabbed it, and put it in my pocket. I gently took Carla’s upper arm, and we moved as quick as we could back across the field and to my Ford.

  “Your head? Are you okay? What happened?”

  She brought up her hand, touched the side of her head, looked in amazement at the blood on her fingers.

  “I don’t know. I think … Micah, that was his name, I think the barrel of Micah’s revolver scraped me when he fell back. Does that make sense?”

  “It does.”

  I opened up the doors to my Ford Expedition, bundled her in as quickly and as best as I could, and retrieved my Beretta and holster. I wasn’t sure if George had any other allies out there, working on his behalf, but I w
anted to be safe. I slammed open my glovebox, grabbed a couple of napkins, pressed them into Carla’s hand. She put them up to her bleeding head without hesitation. I started up the Ford and Carla said, “What … what happened back there?”

  “I’ll let you know in a bit,” I said, “but I’ve got just a few minutes to clear up things.”

  I quickly reversed and made a U-turn, and drove back up the access road, to the main road. I took a left, and then another left, and I went down the access road I had earlier told George to take. I went past the rear of the abandoned school and then came up on a black Cadillac Escalade. I pulled in right behind it.

  “Carla, is there anybody else out there? Anybody else working with George?”

  “No,” she said, sitting in nearly a ball in the passenger’s seat, her legs pulled up, her arms tight across her chest. “They were alone.”

  As I started to get out of the Expedition, she said, “My stuff … some of my stuff was in the back … why did they keep my stuff? Why?”

  I had a number of readily available answers, none of which I wanted to share. “I’ll be back, quick as I can.”

  The Cadillac was unlocked, which gave me a time bonus. Sure enough, in the rear seat were two bags I recognized as belonging to Carla. I tossed them out onto the road and with some more napkins—assisted by a water bottle—I wiped down the rear of the Navigator as best as I could.

  As I worked, I spotted a smear of brown on the rear passenger seat.

  Dried blood.

  Yeah, they had hurt her, all right.

  When I was done trying to remove Carla’s presence, the best I could, I had a thought. I removed my Ka-Bar knife, wiped that clean as well, and tossed it in the rear, where George’s and Micah’s belongings were stashed. If I was law enforcement, digging through that baggage might lead to some wonderful investigative opportunities, which is why I left it alone. And the knife might lead them in the direction of the murdered Kate Salzi, which sounded like a grand idea.